Rufus the stupid

Memories, there are moments of time where I find myself falling into deep bouts of quietness. In these moments, or hours I have lost myself to a clouded childhood, where I am finding little bits and pieces. These pieces like shards of glass, evasive, and hard to the touch. I wonder, where did I lose myself, and how did I find myself. Did I actually, find myself? And who are we if we are not made up of little bits and pieces, strewn around the ground. Discarded but not forever. Where did I come from? There is a place, there has to be a place. And I find myself every time I think of the words my father has said.

This might be an interesting way to find oneself. If you look up one day, at 27 or 28, with two kids, a house, a husband, a career, and you wonder, who the hell am I? You may as well start looking somewhere.

For the entirety of my life my father has been present. From what I remember we have lived together since after my second year of life. He balked when my mother presented me with earrings, forcing her to take them out, and making me wait until I was 14 to get them re done again in secret. I was a pretty baby, and like to think of myself as a pretty person, mocha skin, brown eyes, curly hair, and I grew into an even prettier child. These are all things I know only from looking at pictures. I do not have any memories of my child hood, anything deeper than knowing where I lived, or what we looked like because of my father’s meticulous photo keeping, and his love of the camcorder.

While this story or timeline is not about me, it’s about figuring out who I am through my father. I will be included, and tucked in neatly in order for this whole thing to make sense. So introducing me is best. I am Tershia, a 28 year old (at least at the start of this) mother of two. I sometimes use the expression “I wear many hats” to describe myself. There is always something else I am doing, or working on, that defines me. For these purposes I would like only to be defined as someone’s mother, and someone’s daughter. Nothing more, or nothing less.

Rufus

When I thought about writing a book, for real, not starting a book, but writing one from start to finish, and seeing something through. One story came to mind over and over again, it’s a favorite of mine to tell. I must have been about 13 maybe 15, and I had confided in my father how much I disliked my name. Tershia, going to an all-white school, where they mispronounced, made fun of, and made me feel inadequate. It has been the story of me with this name, trying to figure out if I love it, or hate it, the compromises we made as a family to help me adjust.

My father as I talked about the latest mispronunciation of my name laughed. He said to me, and my cousin who was in the car who had a perfectly normal name. “I hated my name as a kid too.” To which I asked why, and he replied “It was always so easy to make fun of.”

How, what could they have called you, Rufus is such a strange name. I couldn’t understand it, what would they have said. It must have been because it’s a dog’s name. I said this because I was feeling like I could say it in this moment, and he wouldn’t have a fit. Truthfully I had been holding onto this gem for a while, and waited a lifetime for the right moment. For this conversation to come about, because somehow I knew it would, eventually.

“Think about it” he said “What rhymes with Rufus?”

I don’t remember where we were going, and why we were in the car for so long, but over the low droning of talk radio, and classical music, that are the main things my father listens to in the car I tried to puzzle it out. What rhymes with Rufus? Were the kids in the 60’s and 70’s that much more creative than me, was there a word that eluded me, and I would never know it because I have not read the dictionary enough when he told me to.

“It has to be idiot dad.”

Laughter, one thing I will always be able to recall about my dad, and anyone who meets him, will be his laugh. I remember thinking if it’s not idiot what could it be, my cousin jumped in to defend me with a series of words that didn’t rhyme, but were things one maybe shouldn’t say to their uncle. He laughed and laughed, but wouldn’t budge. Finally I got it, in a stroke of genius, I yelled it out.

“Rufus the stupid!” Hysterical, I had cracked the case, I had solved the mystery. My father got quiet. The car got quiet; I sounded the word out again and again to make it rhyme. “Rufus the stooooopid”

As the car got quieter, he looked at me with disbelief, and yelled

 “Rufus the Doofus, Tershia, Rufus the fucking Doofus.”

That was, a much better fit.